Fragrance and body care products

Having just completed an aromatherapy course, I am very interested to learn about scent in the products I buy, whether it be natural or artificial (and to be honest, I am making most of my own face and body care products now with the base ingredients being as pure, natural and organic as possible). How often do we stop to think about the tantalizing smell in our air fresheners, body care products, cleaning products? More often than not, scents in our environment are chemicals.

Did you know that the cosmetics industry can put any chemical into a product’s “fragrance” without showing it on the ingredients list?!! Enviroblog, a blog focussing on the environmental connections to public health, states that:

A major loophole in FDA’s federal law lets manufacturers of products like shampoo, lotion, and body wash include nearly any ingredient in their products under the name “fragrance” without actually listing the chemical.

This however, is just the tip of the iceburg! Check out the Dr Bronner website to read about the lawsuit that they have “against Major ‘Organic’ Cheater Brands: offending Companies claim “Organic” or “Organics” on their labels, when in fact the main cleansing ingredients are based on conventional agricultural and/or petrochemical material”. I was quite surprised at the list of offenders, named as: Estee Lauder, Stella McCartney’s CARE, Ecocert and OASIS, Jason, Avalon, Nature’s Gate, Kiss My Face, Juice, Giovanni, Head, Desert Essence, and Ikove.